area the chamber was something like five
feet by six and a half, but in height not much more than eighteen
inches. The floor of this snug retreat was not five inches above the
level of the water in the passages leading in to it; but so
excellently was it constructed as to be altogether free from damp. It
was daintily clean, moreover; and the beds of dry grass around the
edges of the chamber were clean and fresh.

From this room the living, sleeping, and dining room of the beaver
family, ran two passageways communicating with the outside world. Both
of these were roofed over to a point well outside the walls of the
house, and had their opening in the bottom of the pond, where the
water was considerably more than three feet in depth. One of these
passages was perfectly straight, about two feet in width, and built on
a long, gradual slope. It was by this entrance that the house-dwellers
were wont to bring in their food supplies, in the shape of sticks of
green willow, birch and poplar. When these sticks were stripped clean
of their bark, which was the beavers' chief nourishment, they were
then dragged out again, and floated down to be used in the repair of
the dam. The other passage, especially adapted to quick exit in case
of danger from the way of the roof, was about as spacious as the
first, but much shorter and steeper. It was crooked, moreover,--for a
reason doubtless adequate to the architects, but obscure to mere human
observers. The exits of both passages were always in open water, no
matter how fierce the frosts of the winter, how thick the armour of
ice over the surface of the pond. In the neighbourhood of the house
were springs bubbling up through the bottom, and keeping the
temperature of the pond fairly uniform throughout the coldest weather,
so that the ice, at worst, never attained a thickness of more than a
foot and a half, even though in the bigger lakes of that region it
might make to a depth of three feet and over.

[Illustration: "POKED HIS HEAD ABOVE WATER."]

While the wounded beaver lay in the chamber licking his honourable
gashes, two other members of the family entered and approached him. In
some simple but adequate speech it was conveyed to them that their
presence was not required, and they retreated precipitately, taking
different exits. One swam to the grassy edge of the islet, poked his
head above water under the covert of some drooping weeds, listened
motionless for some minutes, then worm